Nonproliferation Studies

Ever since President Obama spotlighted nuclear terrorism as one of the top threats to international security, guarding and disposing of nuclear weapons-useable materials have become top international priorities.

The further proliferation and possible use of nuclear weapons are among the very greatest threats to U.S. and international security, yet most governments and industry officials downplay the risks of civilian nuclear technology and materials being diverted to make bombs. They use this optimistic assessment in formulating U.S. and international nuclear trade and nonproliferation policies. This volume taps the insights and analyses of 13 top nuclear and security experts to weigh the validity of their narrative. The result is a comprehensive counternarrative that recommends a significant tightening of current nonproliferation controls.

What do China’s Cultural Revolution, a coup in French Algeria, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the changing nature of the Pakistani government have in common? All represent situations when the respective governments came close to losing control of their nuclear arsenals during political crises. This volume reveals previously unknown details about the four cases and offers additional analysis and lessons learned by leading scholars.

The chapters in this volume focus on Russian developments in arms control in the light of the so-called New Start Treaty signed and ratified in 2010 by Russia and the United States in Prague, Czech Republic.

Is the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty dead, or waiting to be reborn? These three papers from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia illuminate the complexities and dilemmas facing any attempt to raise the vexed issue of conventional arms control in Europe.

As the United States and Russia negotiate to bring their number of deployed nuclear weapons down, China, India, Pakistan, and Israel continue to bump their numbers up while a growing number of smaller states develop “peaceful” nuclear programs that will bring them closer to getting bombs if they choose. Welcome to the brave new world of tighter, more opaque nuclear competitions, the focus of The Next Arms Race—a must read for policy analysts and planners eager to understand and prevent the worst.

What is the role that tactical or non-strategic nuclear weapons (NSNWs) play in NATO defense policy and strategy? This book examines the key issues surrounding this question as the Alliance seeks to redefine itself in the 21st century and meet the requirements in the Defense and Deterrence Policy Review.

A new work by leading Russian, European, and U.S. experts analyzing the multiple issues of force structure, doctrine, strategy, and Russian national security policy connected with Russia’s reliance on nuclear weapons as the main deterrent of threats to its security.

What are the prospects for further progress in the reset policy with Russia regarding arms control and nuclear proliferation by North Korea and Iran? This monograph attempts to postulate where we are, and possibly where we should be going, or will be going, with respect to these issues.

Will the global spread of nuclear power programs, which could bring many more countries much closer to acquiring nuclear weapons capabilities, be an inevitable consequence of energy market economics? Or is such an expansion impossible without government subsidies and new policies to support them? This volume showcases the analyses of some of the world’s leading energy experts to shed light on this key 21st century security issue.

Iraqis are debating the desirability of atomic power for their country. U.S. and international policymakers will have to consider Iraqi views as they shape policy to manage the process of an orderly, safe, and peaceful nuclear reintegration of Iraq in the civilian sector while guaranteeing safeguards against both accidents and any future diversion of a nuclear program for military purposes or terrorist exploitation.

With any attempt to assess security threats, there is a natural tendency to focus first on the worst. Consider the most recent appraisals of Pakistan’s nuclear program. Normally, the risk of war between Pakistan and India, and possible nuclear escalation, would be bad enough. Now, however, most American security experts are riveted on the frightening possibility of Pakistani nuclear weapons capabilities falling into the hands of terrorists who are intent on attacking the United States. Presented with the horrific implications of such an attack, the American public and media have increasingly come to view nearly all Pakistani security issues through this lens.

Russia presents an ever greater challenge to American policy and interests. This monograph analyzes the dimensions of Russian threat perception, the mainsprings and goals of contemporary Russian foreign policy, and the requirements for a coherent U.S. strategy to meet that challenge across the entire agenda of Russo-American and East-West relations.

If possible, it would be useful to enhance the International Atomic Energy Agency’s ability to detect and prevent nuclear diversions. This would not only reduce the current risk of nuclear proliferation, it would make the further expansion of nuclear power much less risky.

North Korea has never officially abandoned its objective of “completing the revolution in the south” and has continued an alarming military buildup. The ballistic missile inventory now totals about 800 road-mobile missiles, including about 200 Nodong missiles that could strike Japan.

Long discounted by arms control critics, traditional nonproliferation efforts now are undergoing urgent review and reconsideration even by their supporters. Why? In large part, because the current crop of nonproliferation understandings are ill-suited to check the spread of emerging long-range missile, biological, and nuclear technologies.

The author explores the effectiveness and risks of preventive attacks intended to combat the spread of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, as compared to other nonproliferation policy options. He concludes that preventive attacks are generally less effective, more dangerous, and more costly than other nonproliferation policy options.

The Proliferation Security Initiative is a multinational activity launched in 2003 to enable the United States and like-minded countries to interdict the flow of weapons of mass destruction. The author addresses some of the legal, political and strategic issues raised by this ambitious and timely initiative.

With the deployment of defenses of American cities against missile attacks, the Bush administration has explicitly rejected the strategic doctrine of nuclear mutually assured destruction (MAD). But what exactly is this doctrine? Where did it come from? To what extent did the nuclear weapons powers ever adopt it, and how much sense does it make today? Getting MAD, the first critical history of this influential line of strategic thinking, supplies the answers.

How countries in the Asia region respond to the relentlessly changing nature of the proliferation challenge will affect profoundly the shape of global security for many years to come. In many instances, the countries of the region are major transshipment and assembly points for critical strategic dual-use goods and technologies. This monograph examines the current state of export control system development in the greater Asia region, with particular emphasis on the economic and security environment in which these systems operate.

The fear about what Iran might do with nuclear weapons is fed by the concern that Tehran has no clear reason to be pursuing nuclear weapons. The strategic rationale for Iran's nuclear program is by no means obvious. Unlike proliferators such as Israel or Pakistan, Iran faces no historic enemy who would welcome an opportunity to wipe the state off the face of the earth.

On February 2-3, 2000, the U.S. Army War College, the Triangle Institute for Security Studies, and the Duke University Center for Law, Ethics, and National Security co-sponsored a conference in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The conference examined transnational threats, including terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction, cyber threats to the national infrastructure, and international organized crime.

This book provides insights into the competitive strategies methodology. The book also demonstrates the strengths of the competitive strategies approach as an instrument for examining U.S. policy. The method focuses on policies regarding the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Limiting nuclear proliferation is a vital goal of U.S. security policy. With this in mind, the Strategic Studies Institute cosponsored a conference at the University of Pittsburgh on March 16-17, 1994 to deal with the issues involved in achieving this objective.

Nuclear proliferation, a security issue which has transcended the cold war, has been, and is, particularly troublesome in South Asia. There, India and Pakistan, neighbors with unresolved disputes since they were granted independence at the end of World War II, are believed to have nuclear weapons (although the leaders of both nations deny it) and are intermittently engaged in conflict with each other.